Arthritis and Employment Debate
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John Howell
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Arthritis and Employment
John Howell Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Bill Grant
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. The modest expenses of somebody who makes a special effort to go and volunteer should not affect any other income that individual may have.
In my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, the second most common reason for awards of personal independence payments was musculoskeletal disease, including osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis and chronic pain syndrome, which accounted for some 20% of awards in the constituency. That is similar to the UK average of around 21%. Those of us who attended Versus Arthritis’s recent event in Parliament heard about new research, illustrating that some 43% of people with arthritis struggled with tasks at home, and some struggled for in excess of two years before sourcing equipment that could assist them.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
It is not just about struggling at home. About a quarter of people with disabilities who are employed said that they did not get the right sort of support: their employers had not got advice from Access to Work to try to make their lives easier. Does my hon. Friend think that is something we can tackle?
Bill Grant
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Access to Work is important, but as I will come to later in my speech, it is not widely known about. The Government and Departments have more to do to promote that scheme and make people aware of it, so that workplaces can be made that bit more acceptable to individuals with particular disabilities.
Versus Arthritis’s “Room to Manoeuvre” campaign has been set up to improve access to aids and adaptations in the home and—I would hope—in the workplace, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) has suggested. Apparently, a remarkable 94% of people with arthritis said that those aids and adaptations had immensely improved their life. That independence is valuable to a person’s overall wellbeing, and reduces the strain on our NHS and local authorities.